Too Far from Grace
by lovablegeek
Summary: [PostRENT] Roger can't talk about his girls. Mentions of RogerApril, RogerMimi. [One shot]


**A/N:** Another story for speedrent, this one for challenge #5. I meant to write a happy April-fic for this… didn't work so much. Ah well… And I definitely have a thing with April and angels. No idea why.

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"Please, Roger, please just… go? Give it one shot and if you hate it the first time I'll never ask you to go again."

I stared at Mark for a second, not quite sure what to make of his persistence. Somehow, I managed to resist the temptation to throw the nearest heavy object at his head, just to make him shut up, or lock myself in my room and just ignore him, but it was Mark. If I ignored him now, this would crop up again… and again. And again. I sighed and all but snapped, "Why?"

"What?" The question seemed to surprise him—he probably wasn't expecting any response at all, or for me to just get off the couch and leave the room, leave the loft altogether, my usual tactic for avoiding unwanted conversations. Not this time. "Because it's important, because I'm worried about you, because you've barely spoken a word in the past _week_, because I've seen you do this before and you weren't yourself for a year, take your pick!" He was standing across the room, but somehow he still managed to make me meet his eyes as he added more softly, "Please. Just once."

"You didn't make me talk to a shrink after April," I pointed out. He winced, just like I knew he would. Any mention of April always made him wince, and I hoped this time it might be enough to make him back off. No such luck.

"No, I didn't," he admitted, toying absently with the fringe of his scarf and probably not even noticing he was doing it. "I was a little busy trying to get you through withdrawal, in case you've forgotten that part. And maybe I should have tried to talk you into it anyway. You sure as hell could have used it, and you could use it just as much _now_."

I glared at him silently, absolutely wordless. "Fine. I'll go, if you're going to keep this up. You make the appointment, though, because it's not my problem."

"I already did." Mark crossed the room and handed me a piece of paper obviously torn out of a notebook. I glanced at it, skimming over the words. A name, an address and a time… "She's expecting you today at three. Talk to her. Try not to be completely hostile and just glare at her or make sarcastic comments. _Actually_ talk."

The paper still in my hand, I glanced up at him. "Are you fucking kidding me? You already scheduled an appointment?"

"I just… thought I'd be able to talk you into it. I was going to cancel at the last minute if you said no."

I rolled my eyes. Sure he was. Except I _had_ said no, and he just went on annoying me until I finally gave in. There's Mark-logic for you.

Needless to say, I didn't go. Took the paper from him and left the house, but I'd mostly only agreed to it to shut Mark up, and if he thought I was really going to tell some stranger anything… Well. He was my best friend. He ought to know better. I ended up in the park, on one of the benches there. Used to be able to find April there, almost every day as long as it wasn't raining or freezing, almost without fail, with her notebook and a pen, or sometimes a sketchpad if she was feeling artistic… That bench always seemed empty afterwards, but I always sat there anyway, even with her gone. Stupid, but it was the kind of stupid, sentimental thing April would appreciate.

I don't know what Mark would have expected me to tell the shrink anyway. If I'd have gone, he knows, and I know, that I would have just ended up glaring at the woman, absolutely wordless, until our time was up. What could I possibly talk about?

About how I first met Mimi—not the first time I saw her, but the first time I spoke to her—and how ever since then the sight of a candle makes me stop for a second? How ever since she died I've kept a candle in my bedroom and lit it every damn night just because I swear when I look at it I can remember exactly the way the candle flame looked reflecting in her eyes? How I run my finger through the flame sometimes because when I'd accidentally burned myself that first time I met her, it was the first time I'd smiled in almost a year?

Or how about how even after Mimi, even when I was _with_ Mimi, sometimes I still thought about April? About her smile, her innocence? About how she liked to believe in fairy tales, about how she considered me her knight in shining armor, about how she still used to wish on the stars? About her first birthday in the city, a month after we moved into the loft, and Mark brought out that cake with eighteen candles on top of it and we sang happy birthday, and she smiled right at me with the lights from the candles in her eyes… About how, looking back on it, sometimes I wonder if the reason I didn't just make Mimi leave in the first place was because her smile reminded me of April, my fallen angel?

How about how sometimes my girls meld together in my mind, both of them broken and fallen and lost, both of them just out of reach, my girls, my angels? About how I know I'm the reason they're both dead? About how I wake up with nightmares sometimes, seeing April's blood in the tub, or Mimi in that hospital bed, not breathing?

And I'm supposed to tell this to some _therapist_ Mark found, a woman who's going to listen but doesn't give a damn?

Yeah. Right.


End file.
